


Tony Was in the Business of Weapons

by YouCanJive



Series: Time is the Longest Distance (Between Two Places) [7]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Gen, References to War, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-15
Updated: 2019-07-15
Packaged: 2020-06-29 04:40:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19822744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YouCanJive/pseuds/YouCanJive
Summary: Darcy had never heard the term “war profiteer” before going to Culver.Now she kind of wished she never had.





	Tony Was in the Business of Weapons

College was a revelation for Darcy.

And not just because of she’d met more people in the last month than lived in the entirety of Bonners Ferry.

It was also a revelation because Tony came up often in her poli-sci classes and conversations with other students. And Darcy found she didn’t often like what they had to say.

Since their first meeting, Darcy had only really thought about Tony as a person. Her soulmate. Sure, he was Tony _Stark_ , of _Stark_ Industries. But to her he was just Tony, who just so happened to own a company that made some pretty cool stuff.

But the more she learned about the nitty-gritty of world affairs and the relationship between capitalism and social and geopolitical conflict, the more unsettled Darcy became.

Because Tony wasn’t just in the business of cool music players, super-fast computers, and renewable energy.

Tony was in the business of _weapons_.

And Darcy knew first-hand that beyond the excitement of creation and a competitive spirit, Tony didn’t seem to care too much about what happened with his creations once they were off the production floor.

Before, she’d found it charming how Tony didn’t seem to care about the money and the business despite owning one of the biggest and most successful businesses in the globe.

Increasingly, though, she was learning to find it troubling.

How could Tony not care that his creations were causing pain and destruction and perpetuating massive systems of violence and geopolitical inequality? How could the Tony she knew design guns and missiles that were ever-more effective at _killing_ and not care about who bought and used them, and for what purpose, and under what conditions and regulations?

For years, Darcy had been dismissing the headlines and bad press about Tony. She knew that sometimes the stories were true, but she also knew that the press liked to blow things out of proportion. That they dug up old pictures and video of Tony at parties, that they used any photo of him with a woman or holding a cup or doing most anything to construct a story of debauchery that would sell more papers or more minutes on air.

But now Darcy worried about a whole other category of press about Tony, not as a person but as the head of Stark Industries. And she had a harder time denying it. Partly, it was true, because she just didn’t _know_. Tony rarely spoke about SI. But that in itself gave her pause, because _shouldn’t he_? Shouldn’t SI take up more of his time, more of his attention? Shouldn’t Tony care about it all beyond the thrill of creation and the benefit of profit?

Darcy had never heard the term “war profiteer” before going to Culver.

Now she kind of wished she never had.

Darcy had purposefully not brought the topic up with Tony yet.

They were more comfortable tackling difficult topics and accepting that they were going to disagree and even fight every once in a while. It wasn’t that prospect that stopped her.

She just didn’t know what to say, or even how she felt about the entire thing.

What did she expect Tony to do? What did she even want him to do?

To start caring about his business?

She knew he cared in his own way. She also knew trying to tell him _how_ to care about his business was a sure path to unsettle him, to hurt him. (Darcy mentally cursed Howard Stark and his terrible, no-good parenting once more.)

To stop selling weapons?

It was not her place to tell him what to do with his business. He had a board for that. He had Pepper. She knew nothing about the inner workings of SI, she’d never spoken about it with Tony, so it felt wrong to just butt in all of a sudden.

Darcy also felt _naïve_.

It wasn’t like Tony and SI were doing anything new. It was just that Darcy had never thought about it before. She felt a little ridiculous, one month into her college career and suddenly trying to lecture Tony about his business and its ethics as if she were suddenly an expert.

It _was_ ridiculous.

It didn’t bother Darcy any less for it.

And then one day mid-October the papers and news all led with Tony Stark, _The Merchant of Death_ , and the new contract he’d just signed with the US Army.

Tony had mentioned it before – Rhodey had been the Army’s representative for much of the negotiation with SI so Tony had been sending her messages and photos of the two of them hanging out. The three of them had had a fun conference call just last week.

Darcy hadn’t expected the deal to have quite this large of an effect on the public sphere, though.

(Oh, crud, and if she was troubled by Tony’s business and creations, she should be even more troubled by Rhodey’s role in encouraging it, on negotiating on behalf of the army and urging Tony on, shouldn’t she?)

When Tony joked about it on the phone the next day, Darcy could not stop herself.

“Doesn’t it bother you?”

“I mean, it’s not the coolest nickname,” Tony replied lightning-quick, the humor thick in his voice, “but I’ve heard worse.”

“I don’t mean the nickname, Tony,” she insisted, annoyed at the prospect of Tony brushing the entire conversation off. As per usual. “I mean the fact that it’s _true_.”

Darcy could practically _see_ Tony growing tense on the other end of the line, thousands of miles away. The smile had probably fallen off his face and he was likely grinding his teeth now. The distorted sound of him letting out a deep breath confirmed her suspicions.

“You know you can’t actually trade on death, right?” he asked. _Drop it_ , read the captions translating Tony’s words into standard English in Darcy’s imagination. “I know you have to read all sorts of fairy tales and stories for those ridiculous humanities classes of yours, but that’s not how things work in the real world.” _And let’s change the subject._ Darcy recognized the harsh words for what they were – a deflection, an attempt to draw her into a recurrent, playful argument sure to rile her up – and chose to ignore them.

“I’m serious, Tony. I’m not trying to… to lecture or criticize you. But you must have thought about it before. These things you make are used to _kill_ people. It doesn’t bother you? Even a little?”

“No, Darcy.” He sounded tired. Darcy imagined him rubbing his forehead. “It doesn’t. Because it’s not what I build that kills people, it’s people. The machines are just machines. Anyone can turn anything into a weapon.”

“That’s BS, Tony,” Darcy retorted, toeing off her shoes and leaning back onto the pillows on her bed after a quick glance at the time. She had two hours until her next class. “You’re selling weapons. To the army. It’s not a question of people using your creations for unintended purposes. You design them explicitly for that purpose.”

“And if I didn’t, somebody else would. Might as well be me.”

“Why?” she pushed. “You make plenty of other things. It’s not like you’re short for money. You could leave it to other people.” _Other people_ , she thought, _who might be worse at it. Who I don’t know. Who aren’t my soulmate._ Was she being hypocritical? It would always be somebody’s soulmate building weapons. It would always be somebody’s soulmate dying because of them. “Or maybe you back out and nobody else steps in. Maybe everyone decides to build things to help people, not kill them.”

“You know perfectly well that’s not what would happen, Darcy,” he replied, as if he were speaking to a child.

“But it _could_!” she retorted, even as she knew it was all a fantasy. “Stark Industries is practically the biggest tech name out there. You’re a behemoth. You could pave the path for everybody else.”

Tony groaned. “Darcy, SI is a behemoth _because_ we make weapons, because we make these deals with the army. It’s how my dad started it all. It’s how we afford to make everything else.” He paused, but his voice was getting louder, his words faster. He was clearly getting himself on a roll. “There’s always going to be wars, people are always going to have to fight, to defend themselves – ourselves. It’s not… I’m not _ashamed_ to make weapons, to help our men and women in uniform do what they need to do to keep us safe, to defend our interests. Don't try to make me feel that way.”

It was Darcy’s turn to groan now. She rolled over to hide her face on her pillow as she did it.

“You sound like one of those NRA talking heads.”

“And you sound like one of those people who rally against SI’s weapons manufacturing and deals with the army but complain about the US not blowing up Auschwitz. How do you think that war would have ended without Stark weapons?” He sounded angry now. He was, clearly. Angry and not thinking. Or he would have thought better about his choice of analogy.

Darcy shook with rage, holding the phone too tightly in her hand. Her silence gave Tony’s brain time to catch up with his mouth.

“Fuck,” he cursed to himself. “Darcy, I’m _sorry_. I’m an ass.”

“You are,” she agreed, her voice too thin as she tried to control her breathing. Her eyes drifted to the picture of herself with her grandfather in the collage of photos she’d taped to the wall.

They were both silent for a little while, just listening to each other breathing.

“Look, that’s… low, and you _are_ an ass, but I accept that that’s a good point,” Darcy relented. This was why she hadn’t wanted to have this discussion. Her professors and classmates seemed so certain of their stance of these issues, but Tony had made a good point and suddenly she didn’t know how to define her stance, where to draw the line. “But how do you know when something is… Auschwitz,” she said, the word seeming to draw the warmth from her body, “and when it’s… not?”

Tony had calmed down while they sat in silence, too. He clearly realized he’d crossed a line. And though he liked to come right up against them, even to stick his toe over them, he was generally good at stopping himself before going too far (at least with Darcy).

“I don’t,” he agreed. “But Darcy, I’m not selling my weapons on the open market. I’m selling them to the US Army. I have to trust that they know the difference. That _Rhodey_ does. And even if they don’t, that’s not the troops’ fault. The soldiers, the people over there, risking their life for us, they are there whether it’s a good idea or not, whether they approve of the plan or the war or not. They deserve the best tools with which to defend themselves we can give them.” He sounded so sure, so uncharacteristically earnest.

“Ok,” Darcy breathed.

Part of being Tony’s friend – Tony’s soulmate – was knowing when to let something go, when to agree to disagree. She was not going to change his mind on this. Not now, not like this.

And Darcy was selfish. She couldn’t turn her back on Tony. Not over this.

Darcy continued lying on her bed for a while after they’d wrapped up the conversation, on a lighter and more comfortable note.

As she stared up at the fairy lights with which she and her roommate had decorated the ceiling, she wondered where the line was, where that one bridge too far was where she would be willing to turn her back on Tony.

She wasn’t sure there was one.

It was a little frightening.


End file.
